While entering my car to leave Carson Street Elementary School Thursday morning, I noticed there was a lot of commotion going on in the car next to me. The windows were tinted but I could still see the girl in the front seat acting hysterically toward the little boy in the back car seat. Since I know these two kids quite well, I was very shocked to think she was treating her little brother so badly. Her mother had gone into the school for a moment and had left them in the car.

I should have intervened at that moment when I saw her acting as she did, but I thought she would stop when she realized I had seen her.

I proceeded to pull my car out, but I had to get out to put some orange cones in my space. I now saw the girl and her little brother standing outside the car and it looked like she was trying to give him water but I couldn’t see too well because she had her back toward me and was bent over the little boy. I yelled to her “What’s the matter, Jessica?” and she said, “I don’t know!” So as I got closer, I noticed she was doing the Heimlich technique to her little brother; she gave him about three or four thrusts when suddenly a big piece of candy popped out of his mouth. You could see the relief in his face and she picked him up in her arms and held him so tightly. What I had seen earlier while they were in the car was her trying to help him.

I’d like to pay tribute to this young lady, who is 16 years old and will be an 11th-grade student at Carson High School in September.

Her name is Jessica Ramirez and her little brother, whom she saved from what could have been a horrible tragedy, is Jacob Ramirez, an incoming first-grader at Carson Street School.

Too often we are so quick to criticize children’s misbehavior while good deeds go unrecognized. This is why I felt compelled to write this letter. I applaud you, Jessica!

– Laura Davalos

Torrance

Sanford saga is no surprise

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s four-day departure to Argentina and his illicit affair gave the news media its utopia news story. How could he do this? Why didn’t he tell his staff? It was Father’s Day, and his wife and kids didn’t know where he was – although his wife had a hunch.

I don’t get it. We live in a promiscuous society. (Look at the divorce rate.) Just about anything goes today. When it happens to one of our leaders, everyone takes offense. Yet all through history it was generally accepted that rank has its privileges – from the biblical Kings David and Solomon to popes to King Henry VIII of England to the presidents of the United States.

Let’s not join the hype of the news media and the politicians. If we want change, we must first change ourselves. If we don’t, then cut the hype, please.

– Joseph B. D. Saraceno

Gardena

Owner’s actions hurt seniors

One of the most terrible things that people who have money do is to allow their out-of-control desire for more money to expand to the point that they feel they must have it all.

This is evidenced by the fact that James Goldstein, the owner of two large mobile home parks in Carson, continues to attack both the city over its rent control ordnance, as well as attack the weak financial structure of the senior citizens who rent their spaces from him.

It is a common belief that Goldstein’s goal is to have his bank accounts reach the same level as that of Fort Knox. It is a very sad state of affairs when those who have money feel the need to abolish the very last form of affordable housing for the senior citizens of America and those of low income.

Goldstein and others like him have more money than they will ever need. Yet, they continue to pursue all avenues to make the poor poorer with wanton disregard for those who never had a chance to become wealthy or even financially stable enough so that they don’t have to worry about people like Goldstein destroying what is left of their lives.

California lawmakers have turned their backs on our American senior citizens, and they are our last hopes for fairness to be evenly spread among those of us who live by the Constitution of the United States of America. Our senior citizens have carried this country on our backs during our working years, and this is the thanks we get.

There is something intrinsically wrong when our lawmakers continually find in favor of the rich and blatantly tell our seniors to go “rent a tent.”

– William Smalley

Carson

Exit exam needs revision

Perhaps California’s high school exit exam would be a useful tool if the teachers received the results in a form that contains useful information to help remediate the student’s weakness.

The English portion of the exam has three parts: writing, reading comprehension and grammar. Yet all the teacher and parent receive is a total point number. There is no indication as to what subject the student needs to study in order to pass the test.

If the purpose of the test is to raise a student’s competency, the state should break the results into the separate subjects tested so that efforts to remediate can be properly guided.

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